A Phantom Limb
by Dragon Empress
Summary: 'He knows now that in the depths of space, every day is like a winter...' After the disappointments of Earth, it is so easy to sink into despair. Harder to get out again...


**First attempt at a BSG story. I only just got into the show a month or so ago, so I know I'm arriving pretty late to the party. **

**Necessary Disclaimer: Don't own it. Just in case you were wondering...**

**...**

_I belong in the service of the Queen_

_I belong anywhere but in-between_

_She's been dying, and I've been drinking_

_And I am the Rain King_

_-Rain King_

_Counting Crows_

**...**

The lights in the corridor all go dim, dulled when the Galactica switches from regular to night mode; when they still entertain the notion of keeping ordinary hours. Colonial Time.

It's cold. Admiral Adama can feel the chill even through his thick uniform jacket. Can see his breath, even, for a scant second or two after he expels it. Feels like winter; but of course, he knows now that in the depths of space, every day is like a winter. Something to be endured, to be struggled through until sunlight returns. Someday.

But tonight it's _freezing_. He can feel the loss of hope throughout his ship like a physical thing; like a phantom limb. Long, pale, faces. Dark, bruised eyelids and empty, graveyard eyes. Like somebody (a loved one, maybe. A delicate child, an innocent) has died.

At the hatch to his quarters, he stands still, immobile. Hazy from drink and yet clear, crystal clear; understanding of his own wants and intentions for the first time since they discovered that burnt-out husk of a former Earth. That hollow shell.

He's been trying to kill himself. Slow with booze, fast with Saul's anger and with his cocked-and-loaded military issue. It doesn't matter. He knows now that either way would be cowardly and pathetic and unbefitting of the uniform he is so proud of. The hatch creaks noisily with age and disrepair as he pushes it open and goes inside.

She burned the book. Right here in his quarters. She stopped taking her drugs and attending her treatments. Slow, fast, it doesn't matter (cowardly, pathetic, unbefitting of a President). Together and apart, the two of them have fallen prey to the sickness that sweeps through these halls like a toxic gas-leak. To the crushing, almost overwhelming notion that they have failed everybody in general, and themselves in particular.

It's cold. He wobbles, suddenly unsteady. The half-full flask of ambrosia in his pocket taps against his hipbone impatiently, insistently. Whispering _I could make this all so easy…_

He puts the flask away. He takes his jacket off. Relishes the cold in the room, _deserves_ it. Thinks to himself that there are better ways, even though they aren't always apparent from the off. Together and apart. For she is gone from her people, but not from his quarters; gone from their questions and their disappointments, but ever-present in the dark, secretive folds of his bed. Looking small. Looking breakable. _Broken_. Like somebody has died (like she is already dead).

Looming over her, he presses two fingers to the soft skin of her neck, on the pulse-point. Still until her heart beats, cold until her proximity warms him up again, brings him back. She doesn't stir, but she is still in there. He thinks that someday soon she will actually be _living_, rather than just existing, and then he will be, too. It was surprising (the first time) to realise that his happiness is entwined so closely with hers, that it would take a knife to sever them. That hope is a contagion.

She doesn't stir. He removes his shoes like he would diffuse a bomb, and then kicks off his trousers and folds them neatly, placing them carefully on the nearest flat surface. Removes his tanks and then folds them too. Suddenly sober, he is as quiet as the depths of space. He is nearly non-existent in the dark. He pulls the blankets aside and climbs into bed, oddly breathless. Holds her tightly to him and wonders when (if ever) the pain will go away.

_A phantom limb…_

Selfishly, his brain wills her awake. He wants to yell, to scream, to shake her out of the stupor that's destroying her. He wants to have a wall-shaking argument that will solidify their positions and make her see the truth in all the things that, lately, he's been too numb and too drunk to actually say.

She doesn't stir. Of course she doesn't; why would she? He's no more a psychic than Gaius Baltar is a high priest, than Saul Tigh is a machine (for he will never accept this one, not ever. Despite all evidence, Bill Adama will disbelieve this all the way to the grave). Laura Roslin is out to the world, all out. Shutters up and hatches closed.

He can get her back. He has to. Their hope is gone, but he knows now that hope is a contagion. A symptom of the human condition, it never seems to _stay _gone (like cancer, cancer, _cancer_…). He will push onwards. He will take them all somewhere, and they will all survive this perpetual winter, There will be sunlight again, of this he is sure. Someday.

But for now, there is this. He will take them all somewhere, as soon as he can make her realise that she could take him absolutely _anywhere_, if she wanted to. He would go. He doesn't care if she's a prophet or not. He doesn't care. She has him infected. So he'll repay the favour, and make her see how wrong she has been. How wrong _he_ has been, and that they can be right again, if they just believe in something. In anything at all…

The lights are all out in the room, all out. She keeps him warm like daylight would, and he turns his body to hers like a flower turns its face towards the sun. He hears the calming throb of the ship's engines humming floors below; the footsteps of some unknown night patrolman as they softly tap past his hatch door, every half-hour like clockwork. On Colonial Time. He kisses her bare skin, where her neck meets her shoulder, and is rewarded with a low exhalation of breath and nothing more.

He smiles. He falls asleep.

For the first time in weeks, he dreams.

**...**

**Well, that's it. Opinions? **


End file.
